Softwood Dispute Taints All U.S. Trade: Charest

Sigh. As a US citizen, all I can say is that this just goes to show how hypocritical Republican hypocrisy on the whole issue of free trade. I hope the US government starts following its legal obligations under NAFTA and go even further by ending all subsidies, tariffs, and duties.

That being said, the hypocrisy of some in Canada amazes me. They are right to point out US antics on softwood lumber, yet they ignore the plank (no pun intended!) in Canada's eye in the form of protectionist mechanisms that benefit Canadian dairy, poultry, and wheat producers. Canada is just as guilty as protectionism as anyone else.

No government can be guilty of protectionism because the first task of government is the protection of citizens, both within and from outside of the country.

I have no problem with US protectionism, but I do have a lot of problems with NAFTA and similar fraudulent "free trade agreements", designed to colonize and exploit others, especially with the perceived power of freshly created, worthless imaginary capital.

I live in an area badly hit by the softwood and BSE disputes, but even here many of us are certain that these are the best things that could have happened, if governments had enough brain to realize what is going on and the guts to reorient and redesign our economic systems, away from the reliance on exports. But that would be against the so called "globalized market economy" ideology, so they just keep going down the road to self destruction.

The key to economic prosperity for all is self sufficiency and cooperation with others to the utmost degree. This means protectionism and the more of it the more we should like it.
We did have such system in operation on the '50s and '60s and everybody was better off on both sides of the border. There are absolutely no reasons why it shouldn't work again.

Mention self sufficiency to a neoclassical economist and they go into foaming convulsions, which means it is the right way to go and they know it. Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

"Canada's eye in the form of protectionist mechanisms that benefit Canadian dairy, poultry, and wheat producers."

Poppycock! Wheat has been brought before the tribunal before and Canada has won each and every time. When we lose a ruling, we would have to abide by it, and probably would, but being that we are yet to lose one...

"...by not living up to their legal obligations."

That is the summation of the Bush government.

They will refuse to adhere to this latest ruling, and once again the spineless pus*ywillows in Ottawa will bark but not bite back.

Cut off the oil. End of story.

Perhaps signing off on NAFTA would finally get the US to see that they can't continue thumbing their noses at us. And why on earth do we continue letting them get away with it?

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Vera Gottlieb

Cut off the oil - end of story? Wishful thinking. Most of Canada's oil exploration/pumping is already in US hands.

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Vera Gottlieb

Pulling out of NAFTA would be the best thing that could happen. We'd suffer at first of course, our economy has been set up to be a colony of the US, export of raw materials is a huge segment of our markets.

Government would need to foster local business and local trade (as they SHOULD have done all along). Let us generate our own wealth instead of kneeling before the US and saying "please sir, may I have some more?".

Another thing people seem to forget, when the USA buys Canadian goods, we get US dollars for them, not canadian dollars. Canada's currency is not (yet) the US dollar so we can only spend that money on imports from countries that accept US dollars (OPEC etc). As the US dollar drops, so does our importing power. Without an industrial base of our own to take up the slack, goods will become more scarce and more expensive causing price increases.

Iran is set to open its energy exchange early next year, priced in Euros, and I believe that will result in wholesale bailouts from the American Dollar, crushing the US economy and quite likely resulting in a depression far worse than that of the 1930s.

Europe (east and west), Russia, South and Central America, and probably a good chunk of Asia would love nothing better than to see the Euro take over as the world trade and petro dollar. When that happens, Canada will be caught in the undertow and we'll be sucked down the bankruptcy drain along with the USA. Canada needs to dis-entangle itself from the USA PRONTO and that means no FTA, no NAFTA, no CAFTA and no GATT/WTO.

The United States dictates the rules of any agreement it signs. When things go in their favour the rules are fine. When US producers start to feel as though they are losing something, whether real or not, then the agreement must be renegotiated. The real issue is that the US has too great of a hand in framing international trade rules, which it uses to ensure that its own producers are somehow insulated from the tough realities that it recommends for others. It is in the end it is a commitment to getting other countries to give American producers access to their markets and the US reciprocates when it is convenient. This is due to a lack of checks and balances that other countries in the world have to entice them to keep an even keel on their trade agreements.

The United States of America is just a self righteous and self serving nation with no more interest in the rights and liberties of others then what affects them and their ability to achieve their goal of having the upper hand militarily, socially and economically.


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Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.

Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.

"We" do it because there are six people in this country making BIG BUCKS on oil exports, raw log exports, and just about everything else that we "hewers of wood, drawers of water" can't chop, dig, or pump fast enough. It simply doesn't matter to these proverbial "six" if the Canadian economy goes down the drain. These "six" are making sure their money is safely out of the country for when the end of ot all comes.

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RickW

Dump NAFTA.

If any one in Canada thinks that this U.S. attitude will stop with softwood lumber think again. The U.S. will not be happy till the NAFTA agreement is reinitiated to be totally in their favour at Canada's and Canadian's expense. It will also be promoted as a good neighbour response on our side when our politicians give in at the end.

Lets remember that the United States Of America has walked away over the recent past decade from, worked against or failed to support a long list of international agreements supported by Canada and the overwhelming majority of countries that in the beginning the United States help create and promote the signing of by other nation till it came time for them to sign on - the Land Mines Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the agreement to provide lower cost drugs to developing countries battling AIDS and other diseases, the International Criminal Court, the U.N. protocol on Developing, Producing or Stockpiling Biological or Toxic Weapons, the Small Arms Treaty, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child etc. If it is not their way then it is take a hike attitude.

The U.S. Department of Commerce "understands that the laws and treaties make it impossible for Canada to `win' in the real world, even if they win every time in court. It takes years to get through the courts, and by the time you do, the tariffs, duties and quotas the U.S. has imposed have completely wrecked the targeted industry in Canada. So who cares what the courts say."

Yes, I hear the calls of anti-Americanism from the United States when Canadians stand up for their rights or express themselves rightfully or not. Yes even the firing of people in Canada for doing it. It is on every American Broadcast Station in the U.S., Lou Dobbs, Wolf Blitzer, and Jack Cafferty as examples. What I don't hear is Americans denouncing American Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Ambassadors, Broadcasters, and Announcers etc. for trashing, attacking or justifying Americans retaliating against Canadians and Canadian Businesses as anti-Canadian and detrimental to American foreign relations. Canada with its population of 9% of that of the United States of America is of no threat to American sovereignty by any means.

I BELIEVE IN……

That Canadians receive fair and equitable treatment under local and international law whether you are in Canada or any other Country that Canada has diplomatic relations with. That what is expected in one Country by its citizens is received equally in these other Countries by our citizens, no exceptions.

That both Countries Canada and the United States of America have a level playing field receiving equally the same rights and protection of basic rights in Business, Trade, Travel and Human rights as citizens of our perspective countries.



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Perception is two thirds of what we perceive reality to be.

Difficult decisions are a privilege of rank.

A little off topic, but I was very happy to read in the G&M today that the Provincial Premiers' will push for an Intra-Canada supply for electricity, oil, and gas. This is sanity, at last, given the time zones across our vast nation. The US has 4 power corridors, east/west, across their country and we have none. Now my dream of riding an electric train across Canada is a little closer.
P.s. Also noticed an article from a business school dean in that same paper which supported Ed Deak's theory of our southern 'dead horse' . You're way ahead of your time Ed, I read it here first.
Canadian 247

Isn't there some difference between a country like Canada using something like the Wheat Board that may or may not contravene trade laws (hasn't been successfully proven) versus a country like America stealing billions of dollars from Canadian forestry companies illegally (based on their own laws)?

G

I called the USA bankrupt 5 years ago on a World bank forum involving 5 or 6000 economists and nobody contradicted it even then. It has been an open secret for anybody following the facts, as opposed to ideology based beliefs. Hitler was still "winning" WW2 when the Russians were halfway across Berlin, and he was loading his pistol, just as the USA and Britain are "winning" in Iraq now.

This is the price society has to pay for a mentally bankrupt economic theories forced on them and on the whole world.

When we start thinking about it, the whole world is bankrupt, but it is covered up with unlimited money creation by the banks. Our bankrupt neoclassical market economy papered over, while our universities are still brainwashing students with it. Well, as long as they can get away with it anyway. The last I heard, several years ago, Canadian banks have loaned out over $350. for every Dollar on deposit. They create money, backed up by their own loans accounted as assets. Much of it going to foreign companies to buy up Canada and fire the workers, taking out the benefits. All accounted as part of the GDP and beneficial growth and trade surplus, without Canadians seeing any of it. If this isn't the perfect crime I don't really know what is ? Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.